Page 109 of In Her Eyes

“Let me know when you’re ready.”

“Okay, I’m ready now.” I hold my hand out, eyes still closed, and Jake places the object in my hand. My eyes pop open and I gasp. “No bag?”

He shrugs. “It’s been examined a half-dozen times over the last fourteen years. I hoped each technological advance would find something new, but they never found anything. I’ve given up on it.”

I gaze at the old Motorola flip phone in my hand, so small and cool to the touch. “I had one of these, too.” I close my eyes again and wrap both hands around it.Show me, tell me your story.

The images come, faint and slow at first. “The phone was a birthday gift. Emily really wanted it. I see her using it to talk to friends late into the night. She liked to send you messages. You two texted a lot, even before texting was a thing. You had a code?” I smile at the sweet memories. “She loved you. You were more than her big brother, you were her best friend, and the person she confided in when she was sad or upset.” The more I see, the more I understand how close they were. The two found friendship and comfort with each other when their parents, or rather their father, got drunk and verbally abusive. Jake felt the need to protect her from the brunt of it. He was more of a father to Emily than their father.

The images speed up, snippets of days and months condensed into a multitude of images. “I see her at school and doing homework. Riding her bike, playing with a black and white dog.” Then the images flip to that day, the day she went missing. I know this because they are a mirror of what Jake told me. “It’s raining. More than raining, it’s a downpour. I see you two inside a car. Something’s hanging from the rearview mirror. It’s a . . . unicorn. She gave it to you.”

Jake reacts to what I said with a stuttered breath, like a trapped gasp.

“She runs out of the car and into the mall. She’s laughing the whole time while the rain is drenching her. She’s walking, and someone calls her name. She smiles. She knows this person. It’s a man. He’s tall. I can’t see his face. He’s wearing a navy-blue baseball cap. The cap has a New York Yankees logo. They walk together. She looks at her phone, and he takes it from her. She tries to get it back, but he puts it in his pocket. She doesn’t seem mad. She trusts him. He’s flirting with her, and she laughs at him. She thinks he’s joking. He’s not. He tries to put an arm around her shoulder, and she pushes him away. He gets mad but covers it. She keeps asking for the phone back, but he won’t give it to her.”

No, he wouldn’t. He said he wanted to show me something first.

I gasp and open my eyes. And no more than a few feet away from me is Emily. I glance at Jake and back at her.

Jake stands up in slow motion as if his moving could scare her away like a wild bird. “Is she here?” His voice is no more than a whisper.

I swallow and nod. “Yes.” My voice is as low as his.

“What did he want to show you?” I ask the space to Jake’s left.

He said he bought a gift for Jake’s birthday and wanted to ask my opinion about it and I believed him.

“What happened then?”

I don’t know. He did something to me. I don’t remember what happened until I woke up in the cave.

“In the cave? Where’s this cave?”

In the woods.

My entire body is shaking. “Do you know if Lynn is okay?” My voice croaks.

For now. You have to come fast if you want to save your friend.

“Who took you?”

She looks down, so much sadness on her beautiful face.Jake’s friend.

She disappears. I drop Emily’s cell phone on the desk and slump back in the chair. Nausea takes over. I cover my mouth with my hands as my body tries to expel the veggie burger I ate today.

Instantly, Jake is at my side with a garbage pail in his hands. I take it from him, and he holds back my hair as bile coats my throat. The bitter taste burns like poison as it leaves my body.

Jake rubs circles on my back. “You okay?”

I nod.

He gives me a water bottle, and I take a gulp, wash my mouth, and spit into the pail. I do it again and again until the bitter taste is gone. I grab a tissue from the box on his desk, wipe my mouth, and toss it into the pail, too. “I’m sorry.”

“No apologies needed.” He takes the pail from me before I can protest, ties up the plastic bag inside, and sets it next to the door. Then he kneels in front of me. “What did she say?”

“She said he took her to a cave in the woods. It’s the same guy. The man who took Emily is the same one who took Lynn. She said he was your friend. This guy is someone you knew when she disappeared. Someone she knew as well and trusted.”

Jake’s gaze drifts as he searches his memories. “Did she say his name?”

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